Critical Design Reseach

Ideation: Signifying Pride

This concept materializes the signifying property jewelry contains. Historically, body adornments have been worn to express social status, wealth, and personal pride. Tribal cultures that wear neck rings to elongate their necks, not only serve purpose for beauty but also signify status and pride. I thought about the heightening of the neck and this visually tall display is performed in a variety of activities and gesture where people try to prove or indicate they are more superior than others. Children like to fight over who is taller; King Louis XIV wore heels to make himself taller than his subjects; and gestural moves when people exude pride or show off, they elevate the chin.

In this sketch idea, I play with the gesture of pride through creating some sort of neck brace which manipulates the position of the head to angle back and up as if the wearer were boasting somehow.

This idea more shifts the way culture think about jewelry through visual commentary. Here, the necklace piece itself does not focus on beautification or practable wearability. Instead it gets people to think about seemingly innocuous gestures and how it relates to aspects of jewelry.